Defending Nentir Vale

Defending Nentir Vale

In which the characters run in terror, earn the trust of a long-dead warrior, and pray for the boons of Bahamut.

After freeing the kleptomaniac goblin Splugg and defeating the hobgoblin torturer, our heroes questioned the goblin on the whereabouts of the death cultists that he’d mentioned in their earlier conversation. Meanwhile, the new member of the party, Eleana, stripped the torturer of his [[+1 Bloodcut Armor|magical armor]]. Once everything of value had been taken off their enemies, the party followed Splugg deeper into the keep. They went down a flight of stairs and found two corridors leading in opposite directions.

With Splugg trailing fearfully behind them, the adventurers followed haunting moans through the halls and into a room infested with zombies. They made quick work of these undead, with Jigsaw and Eleana’s burst spells, paired with the fearsome blows of the fighter Ouran. The undead didn’t consist of much, and quickly fell to these vicious blows. Once this was done, the party reached a dead end and turned back. However, Eleana believed otherwise, and a little careful searching revealed another secret door.

Inside was a small room. However, Eleana’s perceptive sense soon picked up another trick – the wall seemed to jump and shimmer as if it wasn’t really there. She mentioned this to Ouran, who stepped through the insubstantial wall to reveal a decrepit armory. On one wall, there was a plaque inscribed with a helmet, and there was an armor rack in the center of the room that showed a grand, albeit rusty, suit of armor. The room was also filled with zombies, the bodies of those that had come before them. The zombies threw a few punches, but ultimately fell to the combined might of the adventurers.

Eleana’s curiosity led her to walk up to the suit of armor. Before she could examine it thoroughly, a booming voice filled the room with echoes.

“A wondrous treasure,
Valued by all, sought by many.
Found in both victory and defeat,
Yet never at the bottom of a treasure chest.
It marches before you like a herald,
And lives long after you are gone.
Of what do I speak?”

Fortunately, once again Eleana had an answer. She blurted out “Reputation” seconds after the voice had finished speaking. No more words emanated from the plaque – instead, the armor glowed and blackened, turning into [[+1 Black Iron Scale Mail|beautiful enchanted scale armor]] that the dragonborn fighter took with relish. They decided it was safe to rest in here, due to the enchantment protecting them, and their sleep passed eventfully.

When the party emerged once more from the room and followed the hall in the opposite direction, they found a strange glyph that covered about ten feet of the hall. Jigsaw’s knowledge of arcana wasn’t enough to discern what the exact purpose of the rune was, he did know that if someone stepped on it, it would activate. After much discussion, Eleana’s inquisitive nature was too much. She walked across the space, and immediately the runes began to glow. Lights connected above and below here, and a throat-rending scream tore from the ground. Terrified and weakened by the dark energy, the party began to move quickly in the farthest direction from the glyph – past it and down the corridor. There, they discovered another glyph. The heroes formulated a plan, thinking to send Jigsaw and Splugg one way, and Eleana and Ouran the other way. However, Jigsaw tripped as he attempted to jump over the glyph and didn’t quite make it. The tearing scream emitted from the floor once more, and the group tore in separate directions.

They emerged on opposite ends of a small room filled once more with undead. Although Eleana was able to knock down a few of them with natural spells, Jigsaw and Ouran were engaged in seperate fights with different zombies. However, Eleana came to rescue the weakened wizard, and a weary Ouran dispatched his own zombie. After resting for a moment, the heroes followed Splugg down the stairs, from which more moans emitted.

In which the characters outwit a talking statue of Tiamat, play a game of Skull-Skull, and outwit a young ice dragon.

Ouran the dragonborn fighter, Eleana the eladrin rogue, and Jigsaw the tiefling wizard set out from Fallcrest, following some fresh kobold tracks in the mud after a raid on one of the near farms. They followed the tracks for about fifteen miles out of Fallcrest into the wilderness before finding a sprawling manor that looked like it fell down – Kobold Hall. After a quick search of the keep, they found a trapdoor at the base of an old guard tower. It lead down into the darkness beneath the ruins.

After carefully advancing down the stairs, the party found themselves in a room dominated with a long trench filled with a glowing green substance. Beyond the trench, a small reptilian humanoid stood in a shadowy chamber, gaping at them. It carried a sling, and quickly reaching into a pouch at its belt for a stone. Then it hissed and shouted, “Intrudersss! Intrudersss!”

Another two kobolds swarmed out of the chamber beyond and quickly scrambled around the trench to attack the party. Doran moved to meet one of them, bull rushing him into the pit of green sludge with a mighty hit from his shield. Meanwhile, the wizard Jigsaw and the rogue Eleana were busy dealing with another three kobolds, two of whom had poured out of a portcullis to the east. Eleana stepped into the feywild to get behind her enemies, but they quickly set up a flanking position around her. Meanwhile, Jigsaw rained magical missiles both on the foes attacking Eleana and the slinger across the pit, who was shooting at many members of the party.

After the kobold Doran was facing succesfully climbed out of the pit, the dragonborn decapitated him with another swipe from his longsword. After the slinger was similarly dispatched, Doran closed the distance to help out Eleana with the last couple kobolds. They couldn’t hold up against the combined force, and, after a short rest, went deeper into the dungeon.

As they moved into the next room, they saw that there were four stone coffins, all of which showed signs of vandalism and abuse. To the left was a series of six inches, set apart into two groups of three. Two more niches along the walls each held a suit of armor. On the opposite end of the room was a raised section of floor with a makeshift altar to Tiamat set atop it. Three kobolds carrying spears stood in front of the altar.

The eladrin rogue crept silently towards the platform where the kobolds and altar stood. However, she didn’t make it far before a pressure plate clicked under her foot. A trap! A dart fired from the visor of one of the suits of armor, embedding itself in Eleana’s shoulder. The poison contained within quickly went into effect, and the eladrin was immobilized. Thinking he had it beaten, Jigsaw crept on the opposite side of the room, but quickly ran into another dart trap there. Duran, the only remaining uninjured member, crawled, using the coffins for cover. Because the kobolds were afraid of the traps themselves, all three members of the group managed to make it through relatively unscathed.

Cutting through the feywild once again, Eleana managed to make it up to the elevated platform where

A blog for your campaign

While the wiki is great for organizing your campaign world, it’s not the best way to chronicle your adventures. For that purpose, you need a blog!

The Adventure Log will allow you to chronologically order the happenings of your campaign. It serves as the record of what has passed. After each gaming session, come to the Adventure Log and write up what happened. In time, it will grow into a great story!

Best of all, each Adventure Log post is also a wiki page! You can link back and forth with your wiki, characters, and so forth as you wish.

One final tip: Before you jump in and try to write up the entire history for your campaign, take a deep breath. Rather than spending days writing and getting exhausted, I would suggest writing a quick “Story So Far” with only a summary. Then, get back to gaming! Grow your Adventure Log over time, rather than all at once.